Review of The Night Stages by Jane Urquhart

The Night Stages

I wouldn’t normally begin a review by describing my ethnic heritage, but since my name looks English, I should say here that my background is pretty much Irish. Even so, I didn’t know there was an Irish language until I hit middle age. This book is largely about the lost parts of Ireland, the myths, the old places, the paved over wild flowers, the crumbling and abandoned homes. The exploitation of the Irish by the English is developed clearly. This novel rings bells of longing for the old ways, before the starvations, but not so loud in my head.

Many people are in love with Ireland, especially the old stories, and they would likely love Jane Urquhart’s book. It unfolds like a chrysanthemum, petal by petal. After the first fourteen pages I was bewildered as to who the characters were and what they were up to. It wasn’t until the last few pages that I understood where the main character, Tamara, was headed, and why.

Dialogue flows beautifully, but in non-sequiturs: “’The girl I married had no links to a life in the country,’ he said. ‘The smell of the turf and the animals would have put her off, I think. There was nothing in her life like that.’
‘I’m glad you became a cyclist, she said…”

Yet the book finally and beautifully connects every image. A boy’s first bicycle ride is transcendental, and Ireland is a powerfully beautiful, if damp and stony place. The boy is haunted by his mother’s ghostly voice after she commits suicide.

At times I wondered if the author was using a magic realism style, or indicating that extreme loneliness and poverty had driven these people mad. As Kieran becomes a man, he describes himself as ‘fierce lonely’. Tamara is also fierce lonely, madly in love with Kieran’s older brother, Niall, a very cold fish.

She never meets Kieran, nor does she meet Niall’s boss, who has much dialogue and description here. Another character Tamara will never meet is the artist who painted the mural in the airport that Tamara is stuck in for three days.

Entire chapters are devoted to his learning to live and paint. I appreciated the descriptions of the mural, and how they connected with Tamara’s life, but I’ll confess to skimming through the artist’s chapters, even though they were lyrical and poignant, like the rest of this novel.

I feel like I should have liked this book more than I did. I suspect that anyone more strongly connected to Ireland would love it.

Reviewed by Mary Oxendale Spensley